BY MARK J. CRAWFORD
Shortly following Hurricane Debby’s arrival on the coast of Florida’s Big Bend near Steinhatchee on Aug. 2, it was downgraded to a tropical storm that passed north of Bradford County but brought the usual mixture of high winds and heavy rainfall that toppled trees and power lines, flooded streets and ditches, and closed business and government offices.
Emergency personnel were prepared for the worst, reportedly working 12, 16 or more hours a day responding where needed to block roads and clear debris.
Emergency Management Director Brad Witt said emergency operations always gets a lot of attention for these responses, but he said if you see a firefighter or a deputy, a medic or someone who works in communications, public works or utilities, you should thank them.
“They were the ones out there yesterday in the rain. I saw they were soaking wet. Many of them didn’t eat till late. They didn’t go home till late. Everything we do in the EOC means nothing without their efforts,” he said, also thanking the county’s leadership, including the commission, county manager and department directors. “We have a lot of leadership who gets involved in making those decisions and helping guide this ship.”
Meetings began when they learned the storm system was moving toward Florida. Witt said one of the first moves was to get the gates open at Three Pipes to prepare for the inflow of additional water to Sampson Lake. Even though the rain the county was receiving did not allow the lake level to drop, he believes opening the gates did keep the lake from rising even more that it did because of the storm.
“The lake’s holding ok right now. It’s getting ready to enter minor flood stage at this point, but we’ve had no reports of any impacts from that. We’ll continue to monitor that,” he said. The “event” is not over as run off and additional rain enter the system.
“The storm has moved into Georgia, but we’ll continue to keep our EOC staff monitoring this event until we know that that threat has subsided.”
Rain gauges monitored through the storm indicated 5.5 to 7 inches of rain. It was a lot of rain in a short amount of time inundating ditches and causing minor flooding on roads, he said.
Self-serve sandbags were still available at four of the county’s solid waste collection centers: Lawtey, Brooker, Old Lawtey Road and C.R. 229.
Southwest County Road 237 west of Brooker and Southwest 101st Avenue from S.R. 100 back to Southwest 163rd were the only two remaining roads closed as of Tuesday. Public works will repair unimproved roads as the water subsides, Witt said.
He also reported that all but 4% of Clay Electric customers and 9% of Florida Power and Light customers remained without power as of Tuesday morning.
“Again, I want to thank all of our teams that are involved in this,” Witt said. “The sheriff’s office and fire rescue established rescue task forces in case we had any water rescues. Thankfully, that was not needed yesterday. Both agencies also went up to additional staffing. Public works had roadway closure teams and debris teams put together to get out there to close down any roadways and go get any obstructions out of the road. We kept in close contact with our utilities partners who worked diligently through the storm and kept us updated on those outages.”
Public Works Director Jason Dodds also had a list of thank-yous that included citizens who went out of their way to help their neighbors and community.
“I can tell you that yesterday, when we had trees down all over the county, there was multiple residents with tractors calling, saying, ‘Don’t come out here. We’ve got this tree. We’ll clear this one. Y’all go to the next one.’ And that’s how great this county is,” he said.
Lawtey Police Chief Jerry Feltner did report online that water was entering some homes on flooded roads.
“Due to the massive amount of rainfall, if you do not live in the city of Lawtey on the streets of Adams, Grove, Olive, Jackson, SE 1st, Paul Lane and the Lawtey Apartment Complex, please avoid these areas. When you drive down these streets you are pushing water into the houses of these individuals. Please be respectful and find different routes. All roads are under water and will be that way for some time,” he wrote.
Starke Operations Director Jimmy Crosby said a number of large oak trees fell in the city where rain had already drenched the ground prior to the arrival of Debby’s winds. One nearly fell on him as he was taking footage of a flooded manhole.
City Manager Drew Mullins, said despite the large amount of rain, Starke didn’t experience a large amount of flooding. He attributed that to ongoing efforts to clear ditches of debris, increase depth and clear culverts.
“While we saw significant improvement from previous years, we still have a long way to go,” he said.
“I cannot express my appreciation enough to the city staff on the fantastic job they did yesterday. The electric line crew, public works, fire department and others all worked together to clear roads from fallen trees/limbs, restore power and clear ditches,” he said. “By owning our own electric distribution system, investment in staff, and increased tree trimming, city customers saw their power restored, on average, in less than an hour.
